Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-02-18

1 Oullcu ClnNCo SS'Ss
to Aaron Burr's rebellion. l was a CABIN
boy and went along with him. l could
swear like an old salt. 1 could gamble in
every STYLE of gambling. l knew all the
wickedness there was ut the time abroad.
One day my father cleared every
body out of the cabin except my
self, and locked the doors. He said:
David, what are you going to do? What
are YOU going to be?' Well 1 said, father,
1 am going to follow the sea- Follow
the sea! and be a poor, miserable, drunken
sailor, kicked and cuffed about the world,
and die of a fever in q foreign hospital?'
ooh, no. 1 said, father, 1 will not be that;
l will tread the quarter deck and command
as YOU do NO, David my father said:
mo, David; a person that has your princi-
pies and vour bad habits will never tread
the quarter deck or commando My father
went out and shut the door after him, and
I said then: 4 will change; l will never
swear again; l will never drink again; I
will never gamble again. And, gentlemen,
by the help of God, I nave kept those three
vows to this time. l soon after that be-
came q Christian, and that decided my fate
for time and for eternity"
Another captive of this great Christian
delusion! There goes Saul of Tarsus on
horseback at full gallop. Where is he 60
ing? To destroy Christians. He wants no
better play spell than 10 stand and watch
the hats md coats Of the murderers who are
massacring Gods children. There goes
the same man. This time he is afoot.
Where is he going now? Going on the
to whip it out of him: they tried to scare it
out of him; they thought they would give
him enough of it by putting him into a
windowless dungeon, and keeping him on
small diet, and denying him q cloak. and
I condemning him as q criminal, and howl
ing at him through the street; but they
| could not freeze it out of him, and they
could not sweat it out of him, and they
could not pound it out of him,
SO they tried the surgery Of the
sword, and one summer day in
66 he was decapitated. Perhaps the might
lest intellect of the 5000 years of the
worlds existence was hoodwinked, cheated,
caioled, dupedbythe Christian religion. All!
fusion of Christianity, it o~verpowers the
strongest intellects. Gather the critics,
secular and religious, of this country to-
gether, and put a vote to them as to which
is the greatest book ever written, and by
a large majority they will say Paradise
Lost" Who wrote Paradise LOST" One
of the fools who believed in this Bible,
John Milton. Benjamin Franklin surren-
dered to this delusion, if you may Judge
from the letter that he wrote to Thomas
Paine, begging him to destroy the "Age of
Reason" in manuscript, and never let it go
into type, and writing afterward, in his old
days: "Of this Jesus of Nazareth 1 have
to say that the system of morals He
left and the religion He has given us are
the best things the world has ever seen or
is likely to see" Patrick Henry. the cleo
trio champion of liberty, enslaved by this
delusion, so that he says: "The book worth
all other books put together is the Bible"
Benjamin Rush, the leading Psychologist
and anatomist of his day, the great medical
scientist-what did he say? "The only true
and perfect religion is Christianity" Isaac
Newton, the leading philosopher of his
time-what did he say? That man sur
rendering to this delusion of the Christian
religion, crying out: "The sublimest phi
losophy on earth is the philosophy of
the gospel" David Brewster, at the
pronunciation of whose name every
scientist the world over bows his head,
David Brewster saying: 90, this religion
light all my days." President Theirs, the
great French statesman, acknowledging
that he prayed when he said: Il. invoke
the Lord God i'll whom / am glad to be-
%lieve." David Livingstone, able to conquer
the lion, able to conquer the panther, able
to conquer the savage, yet conquered by
this delusion, this hallucination, this great
swindle of the ages, SO when they find
him dead they find him on his knees.
William e. Gladstone, the strongest intel
lect in England to-day, unable to resist
this chimera, this R,llacy, this delusion of
the Christian religion, goes to the house of
God every Sabbath, and often, at the in
vitation of the rector, reads the prayers to
the people. o, if those mighty intellscts
are overborne bythis delusion, what chance
is there for you and for me!
Beside that, I have noticed that first
rate infdels cannot be depended upon fol-
steadfastness in the proclamation Of their
sentiments. Goethe, q leading skeptic, was
SO wrought upon by this Christianity that
in q weak moment he cried out: "My be-
lief in the Bible has saved me in my liter
airy and moral life." Rousseau, one of the
most eloquent champions Of infdelity,
spending his whole life warning against
Christianity, cries out: "The majesty of
the Scriptures amazes me-" Altamont, the
notorious infidel, one would think ne would
have been safe against this delusion of the
Christian religion; Oh, no.. After talking
against Christianity all his days. in his last
hours he cried out: "Oh, Thou bias
phemed but most indulgent Lord God,
hell itself is q refuge, if it hide me from
Thy frown!" Voltaire, the most talented
infidel the world ever saw, writing $50
publications, and the most of them spitefu]
against Christianity, himself the most no.
%torious libertine of the century-one would
have thought he could have been depended
upon for steadfastness in the advocacy OF
infdelity and in the war against his terrible
chimera, this delusion Of the Gospel. But
no; in his last hour he asks for Christian
burial, and asks that they give him the sac
rament OF the Lord Jesus Christ. Why,
you cannot depend upon these frst-rate in.
fdels-you cannot depend upon tbeir powe,
to resist this great delusion of Christianity.
Thomas Paine, the God of modern skep-
tics, his birthday celebrated in New York
and Boston with great enthusiasm-Thom-
as a Fame, the paragon Of Bible
his brother infdel William Carve,
wrote, in a letter which I have at my house,
saying that he drank a quart of rum a day.
and was too mean and too dishonest to pay
for it; Thomas Paine, the adored of mod.
ern infdelity; Thomas Paine, who stole
another mans wife, and brought her to uhis
land; Thomas Paine, who was so soualiu,
and so loathsome, and so drunken. and SO